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Yasuo tips and discussion

In this post I will address some criticism about yasuo and talk about him and his kit.

To give my opinions some credibility, I've played 34 games so far as of writing and have won 24 of them with yasuo, albeit in normals. (practice first before going into ranked)

EDIT: I'm very unnerved by all the insistence that yasuo's q range should be extended. PLEASE read my second response, where Logicaly, his q is explained.

Without further ado let's start.

There are people complaining about his lack of an escape mechanic. Inherently, yasuo does have an escape mechanic, but it isn't a simple dash like lucian, His e depends on positioning and has an insanely low cooldown. With it, I have made amazing jukes and escapes, and also chases. (you can dodge many skillshots with careful positioning) To put this into perspective: if yasuo doesn't have an escape like lucian, then have map awareness and not put yourself into overly dangerous situations without any escapes. That's common sense. You can't just demand that a champion have a simple escape mechanism if that champion wasn't designed to have one.

There is also a large amount of complaint about his ultimate that it's too hard to proc or it's useless. Yasuo's q's cooldowns decrease to 1.66 seconds with a beserker greaves or statikk shiv and 1.33 seconds if you add the other. With these extremely low cooldowns there should be no problem activating his third q knockup. Right now, yasuo's ult is very strong because it suppresses enemies for 1 second in additional to what got them airborne in the first place. That's one extra second where the enemy can't attack and your team can deal damage. At max rank his ult is 30 seconds. If you are proficient enough to land your q's, that is an insanely low cd for such a powerful ult. To give an example of how powerful yasuo's ult is, one game, everyone on my team was killed except for me and a zac. We, single handedly aced the other team with a really well landed slingshot and ult from zac that procced my ult.

I have also seen others argue that yasuo is too squishy and isn't able to defeat tankier bruisers. As with many things, there are weaknesses and strengths. In order for yasuo to use his full potential, he must use his ultmate first, but that doesnt make him any less powerful without it. People need to realize that different champions have different playstyles and a yasuo with very little defensive items should not go head on with bruisers, but to play passively until he has his first core items which include a vamp scepter, berserk greaves, and a static shiv. I would reccomend limiting confrontation pre static shiv to poking. After getting a static shiv, yasuo becomes very strong and has insane poke as his q's proc the shiv.

During the laning phase, concentrate on cs and land q's whenever you can to proc the third knockup strike as poke. While csing, do not every stop moving as your flow only generates when you move. Yasuo's passive shield is very powerful as it can negate most poke you recieve while closing in to cs. With all these abilities at yasuo's disposal you should always come on top in trades. Referencing to the yasuo reveal video, you can also trade by dashing in with an e to a minion, q, and then dash out with another minion. Also, during fights, depending on the situation,never e into the enemy if you cannot secure the kill. I would recommend dashing through a minion and save the e to chase as the recast timer is very long.

tl;dr

DONT: be overly aggresive with yasuo until you have your core items
DO: last hit with your q's and nuke minions to proc your third q
DONT: miss cs just to get a q stack
DO: keep moving to gain flow
DO: observe the situation whether to e into a champion or use a minion instead or not to e at all

Yasuo is not weak, his q is not useless, his ult is not useless, be open minded of your playstyle to accomodate different opponents. Damage yasuo is very squishy and I would reccomend letting tankier initators to go in first. If your initiators have an airborne making ability and your team is there, use your discretion based on the number of airborne, positioning, the ability of your teammates to follow up to decide whether to ult and any further action.

And that's all I have to say. Good luck summoner.

If you are wondering what I use on yasuo here it is: http://www.lolking.net/guides/222591

His issue isn't that he does not have a point-and-click escape, it is that he is very squishy and his trades can go very south if the opponent wises up and just gets in his face. Except for Yasuo v Yasuo, my enemies have eventually realized they can just all-in me.

Also, the idea is his Q has a very short range, and the duration of his stacks is too low. Nothing about the CD really. If his Q had more range or his stacks lasted longer, there would be no issue.

Also, he is very squishy. He has ADC health, no MR/Level and OK at best armor. His Flow also scales HORRIBLY early on (60 to 65 at level 2..? Really?). He is a MELEE adc who can be hit during his ult still, he needs higher base stats if he isn't going to get to be untargetable or have a heal like other Melee ADCs.

Also "Yasuo's passive shield is very powerful as it can negate most poke you recieve while closing in to cs." - that is complete bull ****. His shield has a **** scaling. He generates it so slowly that he can be punished consistently for trying to CS. You would like to believe you can come out on top in trades, but in reality all your base values are low. You will be out-traded early by anyone with half a brain.

He needs some work, but denying it and saying hes perfectly fine isn't going to help.

And that is why, my friend accomodate your playstyle to your opponent. Be adaptive and pick your fights carefully. If the other person is going to go into your face, then fall back and safely farm under the turret which is quite easy with his low q cooldown, essentially a second auto attack in a line. If you are skilled enough you'll get every single EVERY single cs.

His q stacks duration is not at all too short. As I stated, his cooldown is very low once you get one core item. His q is long enough to harass and poke and last hit. (tip, you need to hit with max range with practice) Yasuo is not designed for 1v1 early encounters or else he would be op because his late game is so strong.

Listen to the advice and poke with your 3rd q stacks and you'll always end up on top in trades. Getting a vamp scepter will proc lifesteal with his q allowing you to effectively double your lifesteal regen with a q and auto attack.

Your point on his shield scaling is pretty bad. A shield on a champion that would constantly proc and negate all damage would be rediculous. At his current state, the shield negates an auto attack or one single target ability without you needing to use an ability.

Just because he has a shield, doesn't mean you should go blindly into every battle. People forget that yasuo is a champion that has strengths and weaknesses. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER CHAMPION, you need to play them in a way that complments their kit.

And thank you for reading and the feedback. Everything I've said is from experience. No offense, but I see you have played 21 games and only 8 wins. I wuld reccomend you to be open minded and test out different builds. I've seen you have tried out different builds such as a wit's end, ninja tabis, and some very questionable builds. I don't think you realize that yasuo's q scales off of attack speed. I would reccomend a beserkers greaves instead of any other boot.

Yasuo's passive doubles his crit chance and decreases crit damage by 10% as an integral part of his kit, you need to use it to it's full potential. Few of your builds use crit chance. That may be your problem. On the other hand, I have grown into a pattern I feel comfortable with and works quite well with me.

Remember, yasuo is a champion best fit for the mid lane to fully realize his wind wall potential and the safety of the lane.

I LOVE all of his skills. They're really unique in how they are executed. I DO agree however that his Q NEEDS to have longer range. I'm thinking between Sivir's AA range (500 units) and Jinx's PowPow range (525). It's standard range is 475, which just isn't enough. The range on the Whirlwind proc is excellent, and doesn't need to be changed.

However, the width of the whirlwind is a little on the small side. It's already a hard-to-hit skillshot, but sometimes when it SHOULD hit, it doesn't.

The wall is perfectly fine as it is in my opinion.

His dash is fine, although I do think that having it scale with like 0.4 AD instead of AP would be nice. With 250 total AD, the extra damage would be only +100. It would help him transition better from early- to mid-game (which I've had trouble doing in my own games). The thing is though, to keep it as magic damage. Otherwise, it will be hitting a lot harder than intended, as its main use is re-positioning.

There is only one change I think his ult needs. I believe that a self-buff of resistances would REALLY help out. Since Yasuo's base stats and stats per level are bad, giving him a 5 second buff of +25/35/45 armour and magic resist will help his survivability a lot. Having this buff for too long creates the problem of him doing to much damage while taking too little, which is not what we want. Keeping it at 5 seconds allows a Yasuo to stay alive long enough for his team to come in and pick up where he left off.

Concerning the width of the whirlwind, The width is already pretty wide. (By experience, it's a bit wider than the yasuo character model)

I don't understand why people say that yasuo's qs range need to be increased. If it goes anything beyond what it already is, yauso would become a psudo melee adc with an aimed long range, linear (that hits anything in the line) skillshot. Yasuo is a swordsman and is MELEE. His q is already powerful enough with the 975 range whirlwind third stack.

In otherwords, to put this into perspective, Think about any other melee ad asassin. Zed's q's have quite a range, but the cooldown is not as low as yasuo's. Khazix, any other ranged abilities are similar. They have longer range, but longer cooldowns. Any close range skills for any other melee champs have similar cooldowns, but don't have nearly the damage as a q from a full crit yasuo.

There are tradeoffs for everything to keep champions balanced.

To address yasuo's e damage, it would be overpowered to scale it with ad since his q is on such a low cooldown. Used after his dash, yasuo strikes around him, so using your q after your e is basically enhancing e's damage, making that extra 100 damage very unbalanced.

So far I have not had any problems with hit detection on any of yasuo's abilities except for akali's q and the windwall. (it could be that I just reacted too slowly and the q already was ahead of the hitbox)

I do love Yasuo as he is. He's great and rewarding to play, especially if you do well. The trick I find with him is abusing his free stats. That shield is rediculous! I don't care what other people say. He has a lot of use top too. Thanks to his Q and his shield he fits top pretty well. Sure his W isn't very effective up there but he's certainly usefull. I tend to beat most of my lane opponents when I go top. Especially nasus. I did have a pretty funny level 1 1v1 fight with jax. Need more samples to really know how that goes though. (Tip, abuse the bushes and your Q).

Typically I go straight for shiv. IF i dont have enough dough for a shiv piece I try to get boots for the passive shield. Once I have shiv I immediately try to bait an all in fight. I'll let them poke me down to about 75% hp and then engage once I have my shield. They'l initially stay to fight and then the fight goes south when I chunk 60% of their hp with an auto and a q. That shiv is rediculous if you can get it early enough. Usually this happens around 6 or 7 so I get to ult too. The complaints I get from enemy mid laners is always pretty funny. At that point the game turns around. Either the jungler spends the next 6 minutes camping mid to make sure I dont instagib their midlaner again or I get tons of free farm. Either way, its a win.

I agree with a lot of what the OP said, though I think his Q should be a bit longer ranged. Mid to late game Yasuo is beast. But playing conservatively early game until I get a static shiv is where I have most success - albeit most difficulty. If the enemy in my lane is ranged, i have a very hard time farming effectively early game.

I do love playing him though. He is a very high skill champ and a challenge to learn/play. He is also very good a chasing down for cleanup.

His best escape in my opinion is to only go in with full flow. Go in with E and immediate Q to AoE poke then E out on a minion. If the enemy hits you, your flow should go to shield and a speed boost which allows you to escape more easily.